The Drum's UK 50 under 30 - top 10 revealed including Girlguiding, Financial Times and SapientNitro

The Drum's 30 under 30 list has become a widely recognised platform over the last few years, celebrating the young women who are trailblazing their way in the digital industry, which is generally dominated by men.

However, this year we received the highest number of nominations to date, many of which were of an exceptionally high quality and accompanied by fantastic endorsements, meaning that even after a round of public voting we still couldn’t whittle the list down to just 30.

The solution? What about ‘50 under 30’?

Having counted down the list in sets – from 50 to 41, 40 to 32, joint 30 to 21 and, yesterday, 20-11, it is now time to take a look at who you voted as the top ten women in the digital industries.

With women from agencies such as MRY, E3 and SapientNitro, as well as brands including Jamie Oliver's FoodTube and the Financial Times, making the top ten, we take a look at what makes them tick.

10: Katie Allanson, social community manager, Jamie Oliver's FoodTube

What is your biggest professional achievement so far?

My ultimate professional achievement is to be in a job I look forward to going to every day.

What do you hope to achieve in the next 10 years?

Social is, by its nature, unpredictable, but I hope to always be a step ahead – climbing the ladder to become one of the most respected in my field. I want to be a homeowner, a mother, a company director, a columnist and a part-time YouTuber.

Describe your current role in one sentence.

To build a loyal and engaged community across social media who trust in the Jamie Oliver Group vision of enabling a better life through inspiring food content.

9: Lauren Dowding, digital strategist, E3

Describe your current role in one sentence.

I provide the insight which allows our fantastic clients to make effective marketing decisions.

Describe your career so far in five words.

My fight against analysisparalysis.

If you weren’t in digital, what would you be doing?

I’ve always liked the idea of being a spy... using top secret intelligence to save the world would be a great legacy.

8: Emily Gibbs, global head of internal communications, Financial Times

Describe your current role in one sentence.

I oversee the FT’s internal programmes and communications globally, engaging and inspiring employees while growing the company’s brand and reputation.

What is your biggest professional achievement so far?

Masterminding Digital Learning Week (DLW), an employee engagement event to inform, inspire and educate people about all things digital.

What do you hope to achieve in the next 10 years?

Join a company board or start my own business, run the marathon majors, continue to travel the world, have a family, write a book. Better get started...

7: Harriet Lowson, creative strategist, MRY

Who inspires you?

I’m lucky – there are a lot of strong female leads at DigitasLBi (past and present) so I’ve been surrounded by intelligent, creative, supportive, fun and inspiring women to look up to from the minute I started my career. It’s also surprisingly helpful and illuminating to think WWBD? (What Would Beyoncé Do?) when faced with tough decisions.

Describe your current role in one sentence.

Connecting brands and real human insights with digital behaviours to help set the right direction for creative teams.

If you weren’t in digital, what would you be doing?

TV historian. I nearly went on to do a PhD before starting my career. It’s still on my list, so maybe one day you’ll see me on your telly screens. I want to do what Brian Cox did for physics.

6: Lucy Scanlon, SEO business director, Performics

What is your biggest professional achievement so far?

After the hardest two years of my working life, we turned one of our smallest clients into one of the agency’s biggest.

How would you like your colleagues to describe you?

I asked them actually, but couldn’t get a sensible answer out of anyone. Hopefully they see me as fun and collaborative with a strong sense of commitment.

Who inspires you?

My sister is a huge inspiration to me personally and professionally. She worked in the same industry for years but now uses her experience to work with a big brand to help change the lives of adolescent girls in Africa.

5: Helen Whattler, mobile interface designer, Somo

What is your biggest professional achievement so far?

Designing the Domino’s Pizza iPad app in 2011. It was my first big brief, to design my first ever app in my first job role after university. After launching, the app paid for itself within two weeks, it was in the top 10 lifestyle category in the app store for seven months and averaged 5,000 downloads a day on initial launch.

What do you hope to achieve in the next 10 years?

In the next 10 years I would like to see myself either heading up or starting up a kick-ass creative team, who will go on to produce the next generation of innovative, beautiful products.

If you weren’t in digital, what would you be doing?

I would probably be rivalling Ace of Cakes in sugarcraft creations or nursing sick puppies back to health.

Her endorsement said:

Helen has been on an incredible three year journey with Somo and at the age of 25 is already a true specialist in mobile interaction and design. She has kept pace with the velocity of the market advising a number of leading brands on responsive, adaptive and different behavioural techniques.

4: Anna Jehan, senior digital designer, SapientNitro

Describe your current role in one sentence.

Full blown digital design, getting under the skin of a brand and designing the best experience for the brand and its users.

What is your biggest professional achievement so far?

Managing and being the design lead on our Ray-Ban account. It was a challenging project with tight deadlines but seeing our team work together, experimenting with new ways of working and developing a well-crafted, creative experience was a great moment.

How would you like your colleagues to describe you?

I would like to think they would say I’m a talented creative and a real team player – but above all, I’m fun to work with. I think creativity happens best when a team is having fun with ideas and challenging each other in a relaxed environment.

The recommendation of Anna read:

Peers and clients alike want to work with her because of her celebration of craft and ability to enhance and improve anything she sets her efforts to. She is a beautiful human, a dangerously talented creative force and an all round delight to know, be inspired by, and call a friend.

3: Katie Peate, project director, Reading Room

What is your biggest professional achievement so far?

It has to be my appointment on to the board of directors at 23. I’m very proud to be part of a company that disregards age and gender, judging purely on ability.

How would you like your colleagues to describe you?

I’m a big believer that it’s really important to immerse yourself in all aspects of a business to understand the efficiency gains from every role’s perspective. Through doing this I’d like my colleagues to describe me as interested and supportive, as well as driven, dedicated and reliable.

Describe your career so far in five words.

An ongoing steep learning curve.

The nomination for Katie read:

Her passion for the industry and obvious pleasure in surrounding herself with creative minds is perfectly balanced with a depth of business and financial knowledge, and at the age of 23 I have no doubt she will continue to firmly make her mark in the digital sector.

2: Holly Williams, creative director and co-founder, Occupi Digital

Describe your current role in one sentence.

Overseeing all of Occupi’s strategic and creative output as well as everything from product development and marketing to finance and HR for my start-up, Eat My World.

What is your biggest professional achievement so far?

Starting two companies that I absolutely love. It was a risk to leave my job and start up something from scratch, but it's all been worth it to carve out a career that combines my favourite things: food, drink, travel and digital.

If you weren’t in digital, what would you be doing?

My ambition was always to replace Carol Vorderman on Countdown but someone beat me to it, otherwise I’d be there right now.

The endorsement for Holly stated:

Holly lives and breathes creativity and is a joy to be around as her passion is infectious

By then the charity sector will be using digital for more than just comms – to deliver core products and services. Hopefully I’ll be pushing that agenda while also encouraging fresh talent into the sector.

What is your biggest professional achievement so far?

I’m most proud of how we’re consulting the users of our digital products. A project blog, UK-wide workshops and our ‘Team Digital’ – a group of 15 digital-savvy young women.

How would you like your colleagues to describe you?

Supportive, strategic, passionate, focused on our audience, celebrates success. Describe your career so far in five words. Helping people using online tools.

Recommendations for Jo stated:

I have never seen a digital pioneer as tenacious, strategic and ambitious as Jo

As head of digital communications at Girlguiding, Jo leads their digital transformation with a passionate determination to create a broad, inclusive platform for girls and young women – encouraging and supporting individual growth whilst building a collaborative and powerful force for good.

SapientNitro, part of Sapient, is an integrated marketing and technology services firm. We create and engineer highly relevant experiences that accelerate business growth and fuel brand advocacy for o...

e3 is one of the UK’s most awarded independent digital agencies. We are Sitecore Gold Partners and IBM Watson specialists, Microsoft Certified developers, ISO 27001 certified and one of the first UK a...

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